City Living, Revisited

A few years ago, while we were getting ready to move from Bangor, Maine, to Portland, Maine, United States, for my new position, a good friend approached me with a concern. We had decided to try living right in the city of Portland itself, rather than in a surrounding town, believing it would be the best way to serve and minister to its people. He was worried about this, though—both because of the low quality of life he thought we might experience, as well as our failure to follow divine counsel to live outside of the city.

Never mind the fact that Portland, despite being Maine’s largest city, has a population of less than 70,000. And never mind the fact that, as it turns out, we ended up moving to a neighborhood in the city that is more suburban than urban—and is actually more rural than where we lived in Bangor (which is Maine’s third-largest city).

What I found challenging is the narrow way we often approach and read inspired writings—and how this ultimately undermines our willingness and ability to participate in the big and beautiful mission God has invited us into.

First, let’s be clear: there were times Ellen White discouraged people from living in cities. Thus, in 1899, she noted that “as God’s commandment-keeping people, we must leave the cities. As did Enoch, we must work in the cities but not dwell in them.”[1] But there were also other times, as I will explain further below, including after 1899, that she encouraged people to continue living in cities so they could reach them more effectively.

We must understand her counsel in its historical context. She wrote during a liminal period in American history, marked by massive urban growth, partly a result of rapid immigration. This led to urban crowding, high levels of poverty, and skyrocketing crime rates. Similarly, she wrote long before the invention of the internet and smartphones—so the only way most people could encounter many of the vices she warned about was by entering the heart of a city. Now, a person in 2026 can just as easily indulge in those very vices via their smartphones, while being in a tent in Alaska, as someone who was sitting in a brothel in San Francisco in 1900.

Perhaps just as important, Ellen White always wanted people to utilize her writings by employing “common sense” and to take their cues primarily from Scripture. And in the specific case of evangelism, she urged people to “study the field” to understand the best way to reach it.[2]

Her Counsel in Context

Seeing both our twenty-first-century context and Jesus’ example, we must come alongside people if we hope to reach their hearts and lead them in faith. This is, after all, what Jesus did in the Incarnation. John tells us that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Or, as The Message puts it, Jesus took on flesh and “moved into the neighborhood.”[3] Especially in a world that’s become increasingly skeptical of Christianity, and the slick salespersons who seem to be peddling it, it takes a long time to gain people’s confidence and trust—and therefore a long time before the majority of city dwellers will be open to hearing our convictions. We must first come alongside them, live beside them, and earn the right to share Jesus with them.

The truth is, very few people are as open to drive-by evangelism as they once were. And in this age of artificial intelligence (AI), when people are becoming increasingly skeptical of the veracity of what they see on a screen, nothing beats the power of “skin-to-skin” connection, fostered over time.

Seeing both our twenty-first-century context and Jesus’ example, we must come alongside people if we hope to reach their hearts and lead them in faith.

Fortunately, within Seventh-day Adventist history we are not without beautiful and powerful examples of this. As George Knight has noted, this is precisely what Adventist stalwart Stephen N. Haskell, along with his wife, Hetty, did in 1901 at the age of 69. They moved to Manhattan, renting a sixth-floor apartment at 400 West 57th Street, just a few blocks from Central Park, and went about the work of discipling their neighbors. Hetty explained the advantage of living in the city, noting that they “could hold two readings in an afternoon . . . when they only have to go across the street. . . . They could hardly hold one if they had to drag across the city to give it.” After 15 months of labor, they were able to report that 50 or 60 people had joined the faith, which led to the start of a new Adventist congregation.[4]

Haskell wanted to know what Ellen White thought about all this, of course, especially since she had just given counsel a few years before about the importance of Adventists not living in cities. “Brother Haskell,” she assured him, “the Lord has given you an opening in New York City, and your mission work there is to be an example of what mission work in other cities should be. You are to show how the work should be carried forward, sowing the seed, and then gathering the harvest. . . . Your work in New York has been started in right lines. You are to make in New York a center for missionary effort. . . . And nothing is to be allowed to interrupt the work.”[5]

Not everyone is called to live in a city, of course, and every person must count the cost of doing so. But if we want to reach people with the gospel, we need to be where they are. We also, as a denomination, need to recognize the financial cost of living in a city, and think of creative ways to help fund missionaries who feel called by God to live in such expensive places—but that’s a conversation for another day.

The bottom line is that if we are going to be serious about truly participating in God’s mission in the world, then we need to pursue “best practices” in our efforts. And in 2026 the best way to reach people in a city, it seems to me, is to live beside them in the city, patiently earning their trust and then pointing to the Spirit who has made us trustworthy people.

[1] Ellen G. White, Evangelism (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1946), p. 77.

[2] Ibid., p. 125.

[3] From The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, represented by Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.

[4] See George R. Knight, “Another Look at City Mission,” Adventist Review, December 2001, pp. 23-29.

[5] E. G. White, pp. 385, 386.